David Perlmutter gave a keynote that featured Windows 8 devices, Ultrabooks, voice recognition software and more

The Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2012 kicked off in San Francisco this morning, where Intel will spend the next three days showing off its latest innovations.

IDF, which runs from September 11-13, began with a keynote from David Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel Architecture Group. Perlmutter introduced this year's IDF theme, "The Future of Innovation is Wide Open."

The start of Perlmutter's presentation focused heavily on Windows 8, of course. The new Microsoft operating system will hit the market October 26, and many Intel chips will power Windows 8 devices.

Intel has mainly zeroed in on Ultrabooks recently, but Perlmutter recognized a shift with the coming of Windows 8. More PC makers like Lenovo, ASUS and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have dipped into the Windows 8 convertibles, which combine the best aspects of mobility and the power of laptops and PCs.

What's under the hood of these Windows 8 devices? Perlmutter showed off the next-generation Intel Atom processor family -- codenamed "Clover Trail." Clover Trail is based on Intel's 32nm process technology for light tablets and the convertibles. These processors can be used for the enterprise and consumer markets, where Perlmutter demoed a tablet for doctors that was capable of showing an EKG right on the screen. An ASUS Vivo tablet was also used to show off consumer aspects of Atom-powered Windows 8 devices.

Aside from mobile devices, Perlmutter also discussed upcoming Ultrabook and laptop features. For instance, he demonstrated voice recognition software made by Nuance's Dragon unit using a Dell Ultrabook. An associate was brought onstage to show exactly how Dragon worked.

"Hello Dragon," the assistant said. "Search Amazon for sunglasses."

The Dragon voice recognition software successfully completed the task, bringing up an Amazon search for sunglasses. He then told Dragon to post a link to Twitter with a tweet saying, "I need me some sunglasses." He purposefully used incorrect grammar (and at other times said words that were pretty hard to understand) just to show that Dragon was still capable of understanding his vocal commands. Dragon was with him every step of the way.

[Image Source: Tiffany Kaiser/DailyTech]

Gesture commands were also used on the Ultrabook to play a game similar to Angry Birds, where he pulled a slingshot and fired at a castle.

Perlmutter introduced the 4th Generation Intel Core Processor -- which will power Ultrabooks -- codenamed "Haswell." He demonstrated graphics on two different Ultrabooks, where one had current Ivy Bridge and the other had Haswell. Haswell was clearly the better choice, with a smoother looking picture as the image moved through various landscapes. According to Intel, Haswell will provide 2x the graphics performance of Ivy Bridge.

A mobile version of the Haswell family was recently announced, where it will feature a 10W thermal design power (TDP) instead of Ivy Bridge's 17W TDP, which will significantly boost battery life.

From there, Perlmutter brought Gary Flood to the stage, who is a MasterCard executive. Flood showed off new near-field communications (NFC) capabilities on Ultrabooks, where a purchase can be made faster than ever. Flood made a purchase using a physical credit card just by swiping it along the touchpad area of the Ultrabook. Instantly, all of his credit card information was logged into the shopping site, and he placed the order.

The keynote ended with a presentation about the future of soda machines (in the presentation, a Coca-Cola machine was used). Perlmutter showed the intuitive touchscreen, which allowed him to choose between Coca-Cola, Coke Zero and Diet Coke. He selected a Diet Coke, and it dropped to the bottom slot like a regular machine. From there, he used the machine's camera to take a picture of himself with the Diet Coke, and chose to email the picture to his wife (though he was reluctant to enter his wife's email address in front of everyone with a laugh).

This is only the beginning of IDF 2012, where Intel has placed Ultrabooks, tablets, smartphones, PCs and more for show here in San Francisco.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Not "Google, HTC, and Samsung".. more like Motorola Mobility, care of Google. Again, these are 'standards' patents -- though not FRAND patents, I still don't see Google getting too far. Though, Apple's patents being as trivial as they are, and still winning countless cases.. who knows what may happen.

I'd be more interested to see what happens when Apple tries to switch their SoC supply from Samsung to another manu.. Technically, Apple contracted Samsung to design the SoC to their specifications, though Samsung still owns much of the tech they based the designs on.